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The Library at Chapman University: A Historical Look

Library Staff in the 1938 Ceer Yearbook

Page from a yearbook. At the top is a black and white photograph of seven people posing for the camera. The caption for the image reads "FIRST ROW: Estelle Hogevoll, Louise Hill, Josephine Hogevoll, Alice Scholes. SECOND ROW: Clinton Campbell, Kermit Sheets, Miss Sumner, Duke West, Arthur Northrup." In the lower left corner is a black and white photograph of students studying in the library, with the caption, "How to Study." The main text on the page reads, "LIBRARY Those great custodians of the Silence, those keepers of the Information, those assessors of the Fine, the Library Staff, have an important part in the regulation of Chapman College Scholarship. These people seem to be merely earning their expenses by simple, white-collar tasks, but in no campus job need a person be more meticulous and careful than in the regulating of a college library. More than a strong back and willing hands is needed here. From lowest to highest on the staff, each must know his job and know it well in order to assist students in a minimum of time in preparing their lessons for future assignments. Library workers check books in and out, of course. But many other tasks are theirs. Damaged books must be repaired, new books must be catalogued several times and placed in the racks, overdue books must be traced and returned, there are magazines to sort and file, and then, of course, the Great Silence must be maintained. No more difficult task can fall to the student in charge of the desk than to attempt to quiet one or two boisterous undergraduates who do not need the time for study. Often these noisy ones are friends who will become estranged through assertion of authority. The Library Staff, however, does its part to make the task of studying swifter and simpler." 1938 Ceer (LD891.C466 C4 1938), Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections and Archives, Chapman University.

This page is referenced by:

The Stauffer Memorial Library: Something more than merely this The first named library at what is now Chapman University was called the Vernon Stauffer Memorial Library from 1925 to 1954 and simply, from 1954 to 1967, the Chapman College Library. As the college moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles and finally to Orange in 1954, the library was housed in various administration buildings, and started out very small. Its home on the Orange campus was in Memorial Hall.

Early issues of the Ceer, the Chapman yearbook, show that students had a sincere appreciation for the library and its staff. A page from the 1929 Ceer describes the Stauffer Library as "something more than merely" a place to study and a repository of books. The description of the library as a "thing of beauty" reveals that these early students, who attended what was then known as California Christian College, or "Cal Christian," recognized the value of the library.

Pages from the 1937 and 1938 issues of the Ceer show a sense of humor about the library, referring to librarians as "auctioneers," and as "Those great custodians of the Silence, those keepers of the Information." Although these captions poke gentle fun at librarian stereotypes, they do so in a light way that shows just how much the students valued what the library provided them.
Two Ceer pages from later years, two decades apart, in 1939 and 1959, show just how much Chapman students appreciated the library, as these issues of the Ceer were dedicated to librarians - Jeanne Sumner and Fanny Carlton, respectively.
According to the date on this photo, it shows Chapman students using the Chapman College Library on its very last day as the university library, February 15, 1967. The small library that had provided Chapman students a beautiful, supportive place to study, rich with resources, was ready to move into its own building.